It's good to bear in mind that like it or not, enlightenment has always been, even in a golden age, pretty much limited to an elite.

What we have here is an unexpected touchdown on the runway of the heart.

When a culture is being dumbed down as effectively as ours is, its narrative arts (literature, film, theatre) seem to vacillate between the brutal and the bland, sometimes in the same work.

Eighty percent of love is smell.

You're better equipped for this world than I am," she said. "I'm always trying to change the world. You know how to live in it.

If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It's a program, a piece of hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery. Not a mystery, mind you - the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.

John Irving once told me he doesn't start a novel until he knows the last sentence. I said, 'My God, Irving, isn't that like working in a factory?'